SECTION 2

Hi folks, my name is Loretta Johnston, and I’m here from the Balti­more Department of Public Waste. Thank you for coming out to our community meeting tonight. I’ve got a few words to say about the waste collection here in Baltimore.

First, there’s the sorted collection bins themselves. They’re made of sturdy, solid material, so none of your trash can seep out or puncture the bin. Also, since these things sit out on the curb overnight rain or shine, they have to be waterproof. We can’t have water getting up in it and filling up the bin. Remember to pay attention to which bin is which, and sort your waste accordingly. You should have a blue or green bin for recyclable garbage, a yellow bin for unrecyclable gar­bage, and a red bin for toxic waste.

Our citywide waste management is divided into two services. The first is commercial waste collection, or trash collection from buildings. The majority of building waste is paper, which goes in the blue or green bins. You’ll notice in your office buildings there are signs that warn you not to overfill these bins. All that paper adds up, and an overflowing bin is infinitely harder for collectors to carry to the truck and empty.

Aside from paper, another large source of building waste is metals.

Metals such as tin and aluminium can be put in the yellow recycle bins, but metals like lead and copper should be disposed of in the red bins. These heavy metals are harmful to the environment and exacerbate our city’s existing pollution problem.

That’s about all the information you need for building waste. Mov­ing on to the second service, household waste collection is probably what you primarily think of when you think of what we do here...

Many of the same guidelines apply - the sorting is the same, et cetera.

Please remember to keep garbage like kitchen waste in a plastic bag. 

It makes collection easier and lessens the abominable rotten-trash smell.

So after we take your trash away, what happens to it? We take all the garbage to one of a number of garbage disposal plants, each of which is located in the middle of an open space of some sort. No one wants to have their home or office right next door to a waste disposal plant, right? Waste is collected and then disposed of once every four weeks. 

A lot of trash can build up in that time, so we’re in the process of developing a plan to fund collection more frequently. Ideally it would be collected weekly, but we will likely have to settle for biweekly. The garbage trucks make their rounds to clear the bins at night in order to avoid traffic. 

I’m sure you’ve seen how much waste your own household produc­es in a given week. Now imagine all the trash produced by all the households in Baltimore. It’s a lot, right? It may surprise you that this amount is only marginal compared to commercial waste. Yep, the main waste producers are actually businesses, industrial facilities, retail, and offices. Hard to believe humans produce that much waste, right? No wonder we have pollution problems!

Anyway, after all incoming waste is sorted, recyclables are sent to a recycling plant, while garbage and toxic waste are transported to their respective areas of the plant for treatment. Items such as stones, which should not be disposed of in our bins, are separated out and discarded.

Once the trash has undergone the treatment process, it is compacted and disposed of with all the other trash and finally, when the landfill space is full, it is buried deep underground and in time something new is built on the land.

That’s everything about waste collection. Thank you for listening. Are there any questions?

SECTION 3

RICKY: Hi, Julie, it’s Ricky.
JULIE: Hi, Ricky, how are you? I noticed you weren’t in Psychology today.
RICKY: I'm feeling sick, so I didn’t go to school today. Would you mind telling me what I missed in class?
JULIE: Sure thing. I’m sorry you’re not feeling well! Anyway, we spent most of the class talking about a new essay that Pro­fessor Johnson assigned. You need to choose one of the bold headings from the note system and research it. 
RICKY: Wow, I picked the wrong day to miss class, huh?

JULIE: You sure did.

RICKY: Could you tell me the specific requirements of this paper?

JULIE: Sure. You need to find scientific research that supports your claim as one of your references. It can be from some of the case studies we discussed in class, or you can find your own.
Or even better, you can conduct your own research! I’m sure that would get you an A.
RICKY: Have you decided what you’re going to do yet? Also, where are you getting your references?
JULIE: Yeah, I’m going to research facial recognition by infants. I’ve already found a few experiments in scientific journals. That would probably be a good start for you - there are tons of journals in the library.
RICKY: Great idea, thanks. I’m considering writing my essay on the effects of one of the psychotropic drugs we talked about in class. I’m sure there is lots of stuff about it on the Internet.
Are we allowed to use information from the Internet? 
JULIE: Sure, you can use that as long as it’s not your main source for information. You’ll probably want to cite some of the experi­ments we went over.
RICKY: Good idea, thanks. I’m gonna try to find some information from a bunch of different sources.
RICKY: Are there any specifications on how the essay should be written?
JULIE: Yeah, Professor Johnson wants it double-spaced. It should be between 6 to 10 pages long.
RICKY: 6 to 10 pages? That’s so much! It’s going to take forever.

JULIE: I know. The whole class groaned when he said that. Anyway, you also need to put the title in italics, and... 

RICKY: Wait, each section heading, or just the main heading?
JULIE: Only the main heading should be in italics. I think section titles are supposed to be in the same format, but maybe in bold. You’ll have to check that in class next time.
RICKY: Oh okay. So I take it that the report has to be typed since there are so many requirements. What are the other format­ting requirements?
JULIE: Yep, it’s got to be typed. Aside from that, there are still a few more specifications. You should number each page, Make sure it goes up in the top right corner. 
RICKY: Okay, I’ll make sure to write that down. I always forget to number the pages. Do we need to title and date each page, too?
JULIE: You need the shortened title on every page, but no need to include the date. That should just be on the cover page.
RICKY: Okay, thanks.
JULIE: No problem. Also, make sure the margins are 3.25 pixels wide..
RICKY: What? I’m not even sure how to do that.
JULIE: It’s okay, I can show you. It’s really easy. I think that’s all the directions he gave us. A lot of formatting requirements, but we have the freedom to research many things that we like, so that’s good. Oh, I almost forgot - remember to put down your ID number on your report. 
RICKY: Thanks so much for your help. I’ll see you in class Monday!

JULIE: No problem, glad I could help. See you later.

SECTION 4

Good morning and welcome to yet another lecture in Environmental Science. I don’t think I am telling you a secret when I mention that water is a big worry here in Australia. The stuff is scarce. Perhaps that’s why we drink so much beer, eh?

Seriously, though, a safe and reliable source of water is one of the great concerns of people everywhere. Moreover, as the world popula­tion grows, the pressure on existing water supplies grows greater and greater. Think about it. Our economic system demands that there be more and more consumers. The growing number of people has been tied to climate change, including droughts. So more people means less water. But our economic system demands a high birth rate. For­get about oil. Soon enough you will see wars for water. Mark my words.

But today, I’m going to confine my remarks to Australia. As noted already, here down under, the water supply is extremely scarce. The only drier continent is Antarctica - and remember, no one really lives there anyway. Moreover, in recent years, the wind patterns have changed. Rain that used to fall on the country now falls out to sea hundreds of miles to the south.

Now, when I speak of people needing water, most of you probably think of drinking. Certainly everyone needs water for drinking. But surprising as it may sound, drinking is not anywhere near being the main use for water. Most water is actually used for washing. When you take a shower, you probably use well over a hundred litres of water. Every time you flush your toilet, that’s about eight litres. But most people drink no more than two litres or so per day.

So, where to get water? It could be obtained from rainwater, but often rainfall consists of other harmful pollutants that evaporated with the water. In fact, acid rain, an intense example of this, causes harmful effects on the wildlife of the habitat on which it falls. Water from underground could also be used, though it is more difficult to con­tain and often must go through an extensive cleansing process. The purest water is found in rivers, creeks, lakes, and dams. And, sad to 
say, Australia has precious few of these. Really, how many of your home towns have rivers? Year-round rivers, I mean. The soil tends to be sandy, so water soaks into the ground. Many places are rocky too, so 87% of the rainfall is lost to evaporation. That’s almost twice the evaporation rate in my native Canada!

Speaking of rain, we already heard how rainfall is diminishing here in Oceania. The quantity itself isn’t the only problem, either. Going back to the problems with obtaining rainwater, a further problem is that rain is a useful source of water only if air pollution is fairly mild. Again, you’re in a situation where you can’t win. You need water where most people live. People tend to build cities where rain­fall is adequate. But then modern cities tend to feature polluted air which renders the rain far less easily usable. OK, let's take a look at the table here, you’ll see it showing the relative pollution of rainfall in the world’s cities. The more people, the dirtier the rain.

This is becoming a huge concern for people in the West, who want their water to be pure and safe. Though reliable drinking water is important everywhere, the concern in the West is reflected in all the government regulations and political campaigns aimed at solving this problem. In contrast, there are not as many demands made on the governments in Asian and African cultures to improve the water, as their focus is on other issues.

Now, whatever the source of water, we can never afford to forget that all water is highly vulnerable to contamination. Whether we’re getting it from the ground, from bodies of water, or rainfall, it is suscep­tible to a variety of toxins. In fact, that’s why we clean it before using it: water carries with it filth and dirt. This problem shows up in a number of different ways.

As humans and all other animals need water to survive, it's no sur­prise to us that one of the most important domestic uses of water is for drinking. Yet if you have old-fashioned lead pipes, you may slowly be poisoning yourself by drinking that nice clear water. The industrial pollution, farm chemicals, and leaky landfills are well-known sources of contaminants as well.

So what is being done to ensure we Australians a safe and steady supply of drinking water? There are a lot of initiatives that make admirable efforts to remedy this issue. We’ll be talking about this when we meet again on Thursday. But, as a preview, I can tell you that so far the amount of real solutions that have been produced is not nearly adequate. Traditionally, we’ve been very free in this coun­try. That means that every person and every province tend to go its own way. So the mechanisms for water management are, in a word, insufficient.

To begin seeing how this is so, I want you to read something before our next class. Though a lot of previous data on water usage and water management are inconclusive and have thus caused quite a concern, we can learn a lot from the content of reports written on the subject.
The basis for the government’s water policy is the 1989 White Paper reporting on “Water Use: Present and Future”. If you compare the numbers offered in the paper with those in the text, you’ll find that the report is rather untrustworthy. Truth being told, I’m being too kind when I say that!